Beginning Monday, approximately 300 boxers — including 14 from Colorado — will put their 2012 Olympic dreams on the line in Colorado Springs for the USA Boxing National Championships.
Denver’s Louie Byrd, a two-time national champion, is among those looking to make the U.S. national team and work toward punching his ticket to the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Byrd is fighting at 108 pounds.
The field also includes 2008 Olympians Rau’shee Warren of Cincinnati and Raynell Williams of Cleveland. Warren, who in 2008 became the first U.S. boxer since Davey Lee Armstrong in 1972 and 1976 to compete in two Olympics, hopes to become the first to make it three. He is the favorite at 114 pounds. Williams is fighting at 132.
Preliminary bouts continue through Wednesday at the U.S. Olympic Training Center, which also hosts Thursday’s semifinals and Friday’s bronze-medal bouts.
Saturday’s championships — three women’s Olympic weight classes and 10 men’s — will be held at the Crowne Plaza hotel, beginning at 7 p.m.
Women’s boxing will return to the Olympics for the first time since 1904, ending a period in which boxing was the only summer Olympic sport without a female counterpart. To accommodate the women’s classes — flyweight (106-112 pounds), lightweight (123-132) and middleweight (152-165) — the number of men’s divisions was decreased from 11 to 10.
Mike Chambers: 303-954-1357 or mchambers@denverpost.com
